That’s what was going on in the photo above, which spread all over the Internet last week. We weren’t trying to patch things up, as some people suggested. What happened was that Eric’s guys were monitoring my private email and happened to catch an attachment that had some script ideas and a list of characters, including a guy called Dr. Strangelove. Eric is like, You cannot be serious. And I’m like, Why not? He says, You’ve got this character, Dr. Strangelove, who runs an Internet company, and he’s getting golden showers from some coke addict girlfriend, wearing nipple rings under his dorky ill-fitting clothes, and getting gangbanged by bikers at Burning Man. I’m like, Yeah? He goes, You don’t think that’s going too far? And besides that, What’s my motivation in the gangbang scene?

I’ll leave aside the fact that he got all this stuff by reading my private correspondence, because, well, it’s Eric. Okay? You just accept it, and if you hang out with Google guys you know that they don’t even pretend not to be invading your stuff all the time. So I’m like, Eric, dude, first of all, the character isn’t you. Okay? I mean I know you think the world revolves around you, but the show is fiction. These are made-up characters.

He goes, But I don’t see why you want to make a TV show anyway. What’s the point? You just want to have a chance to make fun of people you don’t like? I’m like, Yeah, that’s about it. Plus, I want to put a dent in the universe, and you know the old saying from Michelangelo: Ars longa, vita brevis. He goes, Dude, it’s a fucking cable TV show. And I’m like, Correction, my friend. It’s premium cable. There’s a difference.

Anyway, by then a crowd was forming and I had to split because if I get too close to the normals I get hives. Seriously bad stuff.

Also, Eric, FWIW, if you think the character based on you is bad, you should see what we’re doing to Scoble. Just saying.